How to Tell If a Sheep Is Sick? An Expert Teaches You Five Observations to Identify Sheep Diseases, Detect Early and Treat Early

Sheep, also called domestic sheep or white sheep, are woolly four-legged ruminants and one of humanity's domestic livestock. But during the breeding process, improper management can easily lead to the occurrence of sheep diseases, and many farmers have also suffered no small losses because they failed to detect and treat them in time. Here, Professor Wang from the Dali Agricultural Technology Station shares a few tips: how do you tell whether a sheep is sick? Farmers and friends everywhere, you'd better read carefully!

1. Posture. Healthy sheep generally compete for feed, move at an even pace, and react quickly, while sick sheep react slowly, stop eating and stand still or lie down. Some diseases also make sheep assume special postures; for example, tetanus manifests as stiff limbs, and sheep with coenurosis (brain tapeworm) may circle, among other symptoms.

Measures: 1. Preventive injection. Tetanus toxoid is an effective biological preparation for preventing this disease. For the prevention of lambs, injecting tetanus toxoid into the ewe during late pregnancy is more appropriate.

2. Wound treatment. When a wound occurs on any part of the sheep's body, it should be strictly disinfected with iodine tincture or 2% mercurochrome, and soil and feces should be kept from entering the wound.

3. Injection of anti-tetanus serum. Use anti-tetanus serum (tetanus antitoxin) in the early stage. A full dose (200,000 to 800,000 units) can be given at one time, or the total dose can be divided into 2 to 3 injections, given subcutaneously, intramuscularly or intravenously; half can also be injected intravenously and half intramuscularly. Anti-tetanus serum can remain in the body for 2 weeks.

2. Body condition. When sheep suffer from chronic infectious diseases and parasitic diseases, they mostly appear thin and weak.

The common internal and external parasites of sheep mainly include intestinal tapeworms, liver flukes, intestinal nodular worms, hookworms, whipworms, lungworms, scabies mites, sheep nasal botflies, sheep lice, ticks, and so on.

Internal parasitic diseases of sheep mainly enter the sheep's body through food or water sources. Therefore, controlling the quality of sheep feed and drinking water is very important.

Measures: 1. Choose suitable areas for grazing. Try not to choose low-lying, humid areas with ample sunlight for grazing, and a reasonable grazing plan needs to be formulated to reduce the frequency of grazing in the same area.

2. Strictly control the source of drinking water. During grazing, sheep should be allowed to drink running water.

3. Improve the health capacity of the flock. Daily feeding management should be strengthened to ensure reasonable nutritional requirements and ensure sufficient, clean and hygienic food, so that to a certain extent the flock's own resistance can be improved.

4. Regularly disinfect the pens; regularly disinfect the pens.

3. Coat and skin. Healthy sheep have smooth, glossy coats that do not shed easily; sick sheep have rough, dull, brittle coats that shed easily, and especially when sheep scabies mite disease occurs, there will be coat loss and scabbing and even trauma.

Measures: 1. When purchasing sheep, they must be inspected or isolated for a period (20 to 30 d) to confirm whether there is mite disease.

2. Keep the pens clean, dry, ventilated and well-lit; especially in summer, attention should be paid to moisture prevention to prevent excessive humidity.

3. Pay attention to daily disinfection; the pens should be spray-disinfected in a timely manner, pen hygiene should be maintained, and feeding management should be strengthened.

4. The surrounding environment of the sheep shed should be clean and hygienic, preventing the invasion of external animals (especially rats) and eliminating all conditions under which pathogens may be carried, preserved and transmitted.

4. Mucous membranes. The visible mucous membranes of healthy sheep, such as the conjunctiva, nasal cavity, oral cavity and anus, are pink, moist and smooth. If the mucous membranes become pale white, it is a sign of anemia; if the mucous membranes are flushed, it is mostly due to elevated body temperature caused by febrile diseases; if the mucous membranes turn yellow, there is an increase in bilirubin in the body, blockage of the hepatobiliary ducts, or hemolytic anemia, etc. In diseases such as piroplasmosis and liver fluke disease, the visible mucous membranes all show varying degrees of yellow staining. Cyanotic visible mucous membranes are seen in respiratory difficulty diseases, poisoning diseases and the dying stage of certain diseases.

5. Feeding and rumination. Complete refusal to eat or drink indicates a serious condition; if the sheep eats but does not chew, the oral cavity and teeth should be examined. Healthy sheep have a moist nasolabial mirror, begin ruminating half an hour after feeding, with each rumination lasting about half an hour and 6 to 8 rumination periods per day and night; a dry nasolabial mirror and reduced or stopped rumination are mostly caused by high fever and severe inflammation of the forestomach and true stomach and intestines.